The Party’s Ideals

A 31-Storey Plot

Maharashtra chief minister Ashokrao Chavan is not the only politician to have smoothened the way for the Adarsh Housing Society. His predecessors also had a role to play.

Political Players

• Vilasrao Deshmukh: Was CM and handled the urban development department in October 2001, when the Letter of Intent was issued. Also, it was decided to reduce the width of Capt Prakash Pethe Marg to increase Adarsh’s land holding. Deshmukh was aware it was wrongly communicated to the municipal corporation that the building had been granted an NOC from the Union MoEF. Deshmukh recommended three members for flats  in Adarsh. They were allotted.
• Sushilkumar Shinde: Was CM in March 2003, when it was again communicated to the area planning authority that crucial clearance and NOC had been given by the Union MoEF. Shinde was CM in July 2004 when the land was finally allotted. He recommended a flat for the father of a close friend.
• Narayan Rane: Was revenue minister in August 2007, when Adarsh was allowed to include non-defence members. Rane's  relative was given membership in Adarsh.

Defence Players

• Major Gen T.K. Kaul: Sub-area commander in April 2005. It was under him that the Colaba plot allotted to Adarsh was declared "outside defence limits".
• General (retd) N.C. Vij: Was army chief in September 2004, when it was noted that Adarsh building would not pose a threat to the defence installations and depots in the area. Vij was allotted a flat in Adarsh.
• Gen (retd) Deepak Kapoor: Was army chief in 2008, when the final clearances were given. He was allotted a flat.
• Admiral (retd) Madhvendra Singh: Was commander-in-chief of the Western Naval Command between 1998-2001, when Adarsh Society was mooted. He, too, was allotted a flat.

Adarsh Housing society

• Plot size: 6,450 sq mts
• Cost of the plot:  Rs 16 cr was paid. Market rate:  Rs 50-60 cr
• Number of members: Originally 30, then upped to 70. Presently 103 members.
• Size of flats: 625 sq ft and 1,000 sq ft.
• Cost of a flat: Sold for Rs 50 lakh-80 lakh to members.
• Market value: Rs 6-9 crore.

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However, a key decision he had taken ten years ago, as revenue minister in the Vilasrao Deshmukh dispensation, brought huge dividends to the promoters of Adarsh, many senior military officers, political colleagues, bureaucrats, relatives and others. On June 2, 2000, Chavan presided over a meeting with the promoters of Adarsh and later signed a letter to allow civilian members in the society, meant only for military personnel, including Kargil heroes and family. The letter said: “We are agreeable to accommodate civilian members in our society—we need your help to accommodate and reward our Heroes of Kargil operation who bravely fought at Kargil to protect our motherland. We have many officers in the Society who participated in the said Operation Vijay”. The margin bears the revenue minister’s stamp, with a note to the revenue secretary: “to consider and put up on priority”.

On September 16 this year, Chavan, as chief minister, oversaw that the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), of which he is head as urban development minister, issued an occupation certificate to the controversial Adarsh society. This critical certificate signals that all’s well, power and water supply can be started and members can be allotted their flats. Soon, though, he had to go into emergency mode. On October 30, unable to comprehend why party president Sonia Gandhi did not answer any of his over a dozen calls, a panic-stricken Chavan flew to Delhi to explain his stand in the controversy. This scam, unlike others, which died at the state level, reverberated in two key Union ministries, defence and environment.

The defence ministry called it “a criminal conspiracy”, the CBI prepared to pore over reams of documentation before filing an FIR and, as Chavan’s predecessor and Union minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, once his mentor but now a rival, led the charge, Chavan merely went through the motions of being chief minister. No one was certain he would last but none would confirm he would be asked to step down. Possible names for his successor were discussed; among them Union ministers Prithviraj Chavan, Mukul Wasnik, Gurudas Kamat, and ironically, three former CMs who themselves stand implicated in the scam—Deshmukh, Sushilkumar Shinde and Narayan Rane.

Here lies the rub. Chavan played no mean part in allowing Adarsh Society to prosper and grow—literally from a six-floor apartment building for defence personnel and Kargil war widows to a plush 31-storey residential tower with more than 50 per cent membership allotted to serving and former bureaucrats, relatives and close aides of key politicians, and some politicians themselves. But Deshmukh, Shinde and Rane, generously aided by key bureaucrats and some help from the military, either through intent or inadvertently helped the society too. Coincidentally, their relatives or key aides became members of the society. “I signed files in good faith,” says Deshmukh.

Chavan put up the lame defence that his “family meant only his wife and two daughters” to argue he had nothing to do with his brother-in-law, sister-in-law and mother-in-law (who passed away a few months ago) being society members. “If it’s a state-owned plot allotted to a society, anyone can be a member,” he said. Given that his camp in Delhi prepared a dossier for Sonia, listing his predecessors’ largesse to Adarsh Society, with a dozen supporting documents, Chavan may still ride out the storm.

However, the Adarsh scam is a textbook case of how exceptions can be made to law, how rules can be changed with impunity, how easily quid pro quos can be worked out with top-level bureaucrats and politicians. Here are some of the key violations:

• Given its location in the Coastal Regulation Zone 2 (construction in this zone requires complete clearance from the state Coastal Zone Management Authority backed by an NOC from the Union MoEF. Adarsh has neither.
• CRZ Rules (1991) restrict vertical development in sensitive coastal areas to not more than 1.33 times of the size of the plot. Adarsh, at 103 metres, is well past this limit.
• CRZ Rules also do not allow transfer of floor space index (fsi, the ratio of built space to open space) from one plot to another. Adarsh is accused of transferring fsi from a bus depot nearby.
• For a residential tower in CRZ 2 area, the state environment department has not processed any papers at all. It got into the mess this week only when Jairam Ramesh demanded a report.
• The nodal agency is MMRDA, which, in accordance with town planning norms, initially approved only six floors and later eight floors, taking the total to 14 floors with 52 flats. This was upped to 31 floors. (The order has now been revoked.) MMRDA is under the direct control of the state urban development department, a portfolio generally held in Maharashtra by chief ministers.
• About 2,700 sq metres were added to the plot in a most surreptitious manner. In violation of Development Control Rules, in October 2001, a government notification deemed that the adjoining road had been reduced to one-third (from 184 mts to 60.97 mts) and 2,700 sq mts reserved for a best bus depot. This was later dereserved and transferred to the society.
• Rules were tweaked to allow non-defence people to become members of the society. Two former army chiefs, though they did not meet eligibility norms set by state government for membership in the housing society, were allotted flats. Files pertaining to the society were moved with great urgency. The crucial letter of intent was signed by then CM Deshmukh as he exited office.

“This is the worst form of corruption—plain and open bribery to politicians and babus and maybe defence guys, to grab statutory concessions on the one hand and for omission to take action on the other,” remarks Y.P. Singh, who filed a PIL on the issue in the Bombay High Court in March this year on behalf of RTI activists who first unearthed the scam. Singh says these activists had also complained in writing to the Western Naval Command in August 2008 but little came of it then.

The relative silence so far, from the political, military and bureaucratic class, and the sudden explosion with Chavan as the only target has baffled many scam watchers. As with any big-ticket scam, there are wheels within wheels working here: a tussle between IAS officers in Maharashtra, which allowed some documents to be disclosed now that confirmed information revealed in 2003 and later again in 2006.

There is a fierce war within the Congress, with Vilasrao Deshmukh camp gunning for Chavan’s scalp. Add to that a real estate and builders’ lobby tussle, in which the lobby aligned with certain Congress and NCP politicians was marginalised by Chavan in the last few months, especially for multi-crore redevelopment projects in Mumbai.

The final element in this mix was the silent working of two union ministries. The MoEF looked at violations in this case more carefully because the Mumbai coastline has “several Adarshes”. And the defence ministry, it’s learned, took note of the couple of letters sent to it in the wake of the Sukna land scam. The MoEF may declare Adarsh illegal; minister Jairam Ramesh has stated it won’t be regularised. Its fate hangs in balance. So does Chavan’s, currently everybody’s favourite fall guy.